


And the Telepathic Accident

by Azure_Lynx



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Ezekiel canonically remembers the Game Loop so I figured it was about time to address that, F/M, PTSD, Poor kids, Romance, There's a happy ending tho, at least they have each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9455501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azure_Lynx/pseuds/Azure_Lynx
Summary: Cassandra can't quite handle her new powers, and it's causing some problems with the one of the most important people in her life. His brain is his space, free of anyone else, but Cassandra accidentally tumbles in. It's up to her to fix the damage that she's caused with her new powers.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SnorkleShit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnorkleShit/gifts).



_On. Off! On. Off!_

Cassandra Cillian sat alone in the Annex, testing out her new powers. Jake had been gone for two weeks now, and Ezekiel tended to go out a lot these days, so she had plenty of personal time to practice her gift. She’d made little progress, however, which was quite frustrating if she was entirely honest. 

_On._ She let it go for twenty seconds before she got overwhelmingly dizzy. “Off! Off,” she shouted aloud. 

It had been so much easier before, with the tumor putting a damper on her hallucinations. Maybe it’d been a blessing in disguise - sure, it had been liable to kill her, but she wasn't entirely convinced the newfound abilities wouldn't do the same. 

Jenkins walked into the Annex. “Cassandra,” he began. She was not in the mood for this, at all, and her heart still stung a little from his rejection of her. She respected his feelings for another - who, though? - but that certainly didn't help _her_ feelings at all.

“On,” she mumbled, and propelled a suggestion into Jenkins consciousness, a desire for a book deep in the library. “Off.” It hadn't made her dizzy this time, which she considered a win, though she felt a little scummy about influencing Jenkins like that. 

He paused, puzzlement scrawled across his face in faded ink. “On second thought.” He turned around, back to where he’d come from. “I must find this book. If you'll excuse me.”

She was once again alone, and she exhaled a breath she didn't know she’d been holding. 

_On. Off._ She laid back on the plush red couch, resting her aching head against a throw pillow. “Owwwwwww.”

There was a flash and the Back Door flew open as Ezekiel stumbled through. His hair was a disheveled mess, windswept and tousled and crowned with a few errant leaves. He glowed golden, his body electric and fluid, and he thrust out a small bag. “I have macarons from Paris! Raspberry, your favorite.” His face fell as he registered her sitting on the couch, holding her temples. “Cassie, what's wrong? Are you ok?”

She groaned as a response. He rushed over, laying his hand on her forehead. “Do you need me to get Baird? Is there a problem? Do we need to go to the hospital again?”

“No. No.” She swatted his hand away. “I swear, you're more overprotective now that the tumor is gone.”

“Can’t go losing my one ally against Stone!” He offered her a cocky grin, but she knew it was fake. She could see the fear in his eyes, no magic necessary. She could always see through Ezekiel Jones. “You can't leave me alone with him.”

“You’d survive.” She groaned again and scrunched up her face. “Can you go get me a glass of water?” 

He hopped up, quick on his feet, and rushed out without another word. He was so good to her, a real sweet. Nothing like Jake; he trusted her unquestioningly and did what he could for her. When she was in recovery, he’d been the one by her side, fetching and caring and regaling her with fascinating stories. Not running off to Shangri La. 

Okay, so she was a little bitter. It didn't matter a whole lot, really, because Ezekiel had been doing just fine for missions, but she hated how he had to go out alone, and she looked forward to her return to the field.

He returned with a glass of water and a bowl of strawberries, stems removed and berries sliced. “I thought you might want a snack,” he explained, helping her sit up and handing over the fare. He sat next to her on the couch, closer than anyone else ever did, and her heart fluttered. 

“Thank you, Ezekiel.” She sipped her water carefully and prayed the headache would subside. She wanted to get right back to practicing. “You're a sweetheart.”

Ezekiel scoffed but said nothing. They sat in silence for a while as Cassandra finished her water and ate her strawberries, feeling a bit better. Full dome hallucinations sapped a lot of calories. 

“What were you doing?” he asked finally. His hand was resting so close to hers on the seat and if she were a little braver, she would have taken it. 

Imagine. A librarian, unafraid of rage people or werewolves or serial killers in magic houses, too shy to hold a boy’s hand. 

“Practicing,” she answered after a few seconds too long of silence. “My new gift.”

Ezekiel swallowed. “Right. Dome sights and ‘suggesting’ things.” He looked slightly reproachful at the thought. Cassandra’s heart broke. 

“I can’t just force people to do things,” she said crossly. “I can only put an idea in their head. If the follow it is their choice.” That was true. She’d experimented on Jake a few times when they were fighting, and only sometimes did he follow his “intuition,” or rather her powers of suggestion. 

“It’s still a little fucked up,” Ezekiel replied. “Just stay out of my head.”

Hurt coursed through her, an icy flood. “I would never!” She knew how particular he was about free will and keeping his own headspace. 

He seemed assuaged and he nodded, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “Thanks.” It was more of a whisper than anything, but she heard it clear as a shout. 

“I'm having trouble,” she confessed. “With my gift. It's difficult to control.” 

“Let me help.” She looked at him, surprised. “Well, I always used to be able to, right?”

“Okay…” A smile spilled across her face. 

“Let's make some tea.” Ezekiel stood up and offered her a hand. “I'm craving some Earl Grey.”

They wandered the hallways to one of the small kitchens. Cassandra put the kettle on, filling it with some cool water and letting it heat at its own pace. She typically quickened it with a small spell, but not today. Today, she wanted to spend as much time as she could with Ezekiel. 

“Calculate the air pressure in the kettle,” Ezekiel suggested. 

She spread the dome in front of her. Almost immediately, she grew dizzy, swaying on her feet. With a clatter, she knocked the kettle off the stove and fell like an apple from a tree. Ezekiel lunged quickly, catching her in his left hand and the kettle with his right. 

He let out a pained yell, dropping the kettle in surprise. His hand was red and a little blistered, and Cassandra could make out a burn forming. Her head swam and she fought for consciousness, but playing at the edge of her brain was something else. It came closer, mingling in with her thoughts, and she and Ezekiel lay in a collapsed heap on the ground. 

It was mostly sounds and jumbled pictures, but she was conscious of him physically as well. His breathing was fast and labored, his whole body shaking, and through slitted eyes, she saw him gazing vacantly ahead. 

The images in her mind came sharper into focus, and she felt her tether to the conscious world snap as she was plunged into a parallel state. It seemed like memories, jumbled and disjointed and angry fast hot sharp, but they certainly weren't her memories.

_She saw her hand gripping pipes so hot her brain flashed red and white and she heard a high pitched shriek. It was so painful, like she’d never felt before, and it played over and over again._

_But at the same time, she was locking Eve, Jake, and...herself? In a room. She choked out, full of emotion, “I can’t watch you die anymore.” The words were not hers, the voice was not hers._

Ezekiel. 

She was caught in his flashback. 

There was a hopeless scream stuck in her throat now. She wanted out, she didn't want to see this, she didn't want to betray him like this, but she was stuck, tangled amidst his thoughts, and she didn't know how to break out. Paralyzed. Trapped. She couldn't run away, close her eyes. She was forced to betray Ezekiel by powers she could not understand. 

_Baird was telling her a story and she felt something bittersweet, warm, in spite of all the things swarming down below. Rage people. She was caught in his memories of the video game loop, understanding and reliving things she didn't even remember happening._

_Sound was garbled, and she heard pieces of the story, but it wasn't enough to understand. All she knew was it made Ezekiel happy in spite of the pain swallowing him whole._

_The scene changed again, and now she was staring at them all across a huge chasm, and she was running, running, jumping, and she knew she wouldn't make it but she had to try for them, so Cassandra and Jake and Eve wouldn't…something. She wasn't sure what. Cassandra remembered this part, but from the other side of the chasm, looking back at Ezekiel as he ran, and jumped, and fell._

_She felt herself fall, watched their faces get smaller and smaller until they weren't visible anymore and she was still falling, waiting for the inevitable death coming at the bottom of the fall. The waiting was awful, but then she felt the absolute agony of disappearing from existence._

__God, is this how he felt? _She was hazy as her hands melted away in front of her eyes. Everything was disintegrating quickly and yet she felt slowed down. The last of her melted away and she closed her eyes tight._

She came to a few minutes later, first aware of Ezekiel’s slowing heart pounding against her cheek. She pried her eyes open, dazed, to look up at him where he laid shivering. 

“Is that how it ends every time?” she asked quietly, voice like rasping rocks. 

He nodded at her, fear evident behind his eyes, but exhaustion dragging his limbs down. 

“Ezekiel, I'm so sorry.” She understood better than most how awful it must feel, and yet she couldn't imagine reliving such a traumatic event over and over. She pushed herself up on one elbow and rolled off him, peering closely into his eyes. “Why didn't you tell me you remembered?” 

‘Me,’ she said. Not ‘us.’ Jake, she could understand, because she’d never tell him anything that emotional. Even Baird would probably worry too much for Ezekiel's tastes. But didn't he trust _her_? That was really all she cared about, why she’d asked it. 

“I don’t want your pity.” He swallowed thickly and jumped up. She stumbled back, hand landing in a puddle of lukewarm water next to the cooled kettle, forgotten on the floor. “I have to go.” 

He ran off so quickly she had no hope of finding him by the time she reached the door. She couldn't help but feel like she'd accidentally ruined something huge. 

*.*.*

It had been a week since the accident. Not coincidentally, it had also been a week since she’d had more than a three sentence conversation with Ezekiel. 

She had debated several things. Were it Jake, she might've been able to just have sex with him and get him over it. Not that she’d particularly enjoy it. But Ezekiel required more finesse than most men in Cassandra’s life. Sex would not fix this. 

She quashed the butterflies in her tummy at the thought. Focus. She missed him too much to fail her reconciliation plan because of pesky things like hormones. 

Inhale. Exhale. Three sharp knocks on Ezekiel’s bedroom door. Deep in the library, nigh impossible to find despite her almost twenty tries, and yet she’d found it tonight. That had to mean he wanted her to find him this time. 

She hoped. 

The door opened a crack and Ezekiel peered out. “Go away.”

“No.” She stood firm and kept steady eye contact. He shut the door on her. “Ezekiel…” She sighed. Leaning against the door, she let herself slide down the smooth wood and come to rest with her head tilted back against it. “Ezekiel, I'm not leaving.”

On. She spread a map of the stars in front of her and started doing random calculations. After several minutes, far longer than just a week ago, she grew dizzy, and switched her powers off. 

From there, to entertain herself, she closed her eyes and explored the texture of her outfit. Her shirt was a soft lilac lace with a smooth chiffon collar at the top. Of course, she’d never have known the color had she not already seen it, but still. It didn't hurt to use imagination. There were three necklaces layered, three strings of pearls in different sizes. She counted each pearl and lost track somewhere around fifty, mind drifting back to the Australian on the other side of the door. 

She couldn't stand him being mad at her. She understood why he was, and she respected that, but what had happened between them had never happened to her again and it had been entirely an accident and she wasn't even sure it was entirely a result of her powers or else something deeper between the two of them. 

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part but she really wanted something special with him. She was the only one allowed to really see Ezekiel, allowed along for the ride. He took her on adventures sometimes, and they never told the others. And now she’d ruined it. 

The door opened abruptly and she tumbled backwards into his room. Her head hit the soft carpet and she stared up at him, world slightly spinning. “Hi.”

“You're not gonna leave, are you?” He stared down at her with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. 

“Never.” She kept her eyes locked on his. “May I come in?”

He stepped out of the way and she scrambled up, bounding into his room. He shut the door behind her as she flopped down onto his bed. She sunk in pretty far to his fluffy covers and soft mattress and she let out a sigh. “I want your room.”

“You could've asked to stay sometime,” he said offhandedly. She blinked in surprise and her mind was filled with images of spending the night with Ezekiel. His arms around her waist, tucked under warm covers, kissing…

“I'm sorry,” she blurted out. “I didn't mean to invade your head. I really don't know what happened and it's never happened again and it was a really bad accident which I know doesn't negate your feelings on the matter but I swear I had no malice-”

“Did you tell the others?” He cut her off in the middle of her useless rambling, and she appreciated it. 

She shook her head sharply. “I haven't told a soul. If you didn't want me to know, I figured…” Maybe she was wrong and he wasn't most likely to tell her, maybe he’d be ok with letting Jake know, or Baird, or maybe even Flynn. Sometimes it seemed like the thief and the original Librarian were so at each other’s throats they had to be going at it in a closet. 

“Thank you.” He ran a hand through his hair. His guard was completely down, revealing a side of Ezekiel she so rarely got to see. “I wanted to tell you, I just...I didn't want your pity.”

Her eyes were cast downwards and she carefully studied the delicate floral pattern on his grey duvet. “I don’t pity you,” she whispered, but she was sure he didn’t believe her.

She looked up. His eyes were beautiful and dark and entirely too piercing, so she dropped her gaze after three seconds and stared at his cardigan instead. A firework of shock shot off inside as she realized, eyeing dropped stitches and imperfections, that it was her cardigan, that she had knit for Ezekiel but been too shy to give him, so she kept it and wore it and then it had gone missing and apparently he had had it the entire time?

“I found it in the Annex,” he mumbled. “I was going to give it back eventually…”

“Keep it. It’s yours.” She reached out to tap the wool. “Black is more your color than mine.”

There was another couple minutes of silence before Cassandra couldn’t take it anymore. She twisted slightly and then laid down suddenly, putting her head squarely in Ezekiel’s lap and gazing up at him for consent. The only thing she found splashed across his face was surprise and perhaps the fact he had missed this as much as she had.

“When I was fifteen, shortly after I was diagnosed with my tumor, I started having recurring nightmares.” She closed her eyes and pictured the Cassandra she no longer was, lost and afraid. “It would vary, not every night, but it was always doctors and laboratories. They said they were trying to fix me but they were doing crazy experiments, and I was no more than a rat. Helpless. The only way to escape was to kill myself, and sometimes even that didn’t work.”

She opened her eyes and saw understanding looking back at her. His hand found her head and he started to gently run his fingers through her hair. “So you did?”

“I remember dying a thousand different ways. I remember what it felt like to be hit by a truck, running into the road. What it felt like to inject myself with the weirdest mix of chemicals I could find.” She inhaled. “It took me two years to figure out how to defeat the dream. I had to see it to completion, to resolve it. Face my demons.” She shrugged. “I’m not saying that’s what you should do. Just that I know how brave you are, to feel yourself dying, and to fight alone.” 

“I’m not brave. I’m a coward.” He clenched his hand in her hair, and it hurt a little, but she was more concerned with the haunted eyes than the pinching in her scalp. “You saw me quivering.”

“That’s a flashback. You have PTSD, Ezekiel!” He blinked at her, denial on his lips, but she shushed him. “You think I don’t see the haunted look in your eyes? The way you just dissociate sometimes? You toss and turn when you sleep, plagued by nightmares. And the way you can’t ever be guilty for something or it’s the worst thing in the world.” She huffed. “I watch. I see. I love you, Ezekiel, and I’m worried about you.”

He leaned back, retracting his hand from her hair and she snapped her jaw shut, worried she’d said too much. He seemed to be retreating into his own head and it might not end well. 

“Ezekiel?” she asked tentatively after a few minutes. 

He sighed heavily. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.” 

“I’m really sorry,” Cassandra said. “About everything. Reading your mind, triggering your flashbacks, being the bearer of bad news.”

“I accept your apology.” Ezekiel leaned back further, reaching into his bedside table. Cassandra shifted slightly and her head was against his tensed abs. He was every bit as well-muscled as he’d been at the circus, but he had sworn to her that it was the spell that had made him so attractive. Liar. 

He’d always been beautiful to her. Handsome and pretty and adorable and gorgeous. 

“Like what you see?” He’d caught her staring, an impish grin dancing across his face. 

“I love it,” she answered candidly, pouring her emotion into it. She met his flirting with honesty, because she couldn’t hold it back anymore. “I love you, Ezekiel Jones. And I am here for you, and I will take care of you.” 

He was taken aback. “You don’t.”

She crinkled her brow and sat up sharply. “Of course I do! I’ve been in love with you since the Minotaur’s maze. And I haven’t exactly been subtle!” His rejection stung like a horde of bees. 

He started to laugh. “People don’t love me, Cassandra. They tolerate me. Maybe even like me someday. But never _love_ me.”

“Shut up!” She felt her eyes welling up. “If you don’t return my feelings, just say it. Don’t be cruel. You’re not cruel.”

“Of course I love you!” It exploded from him, a balloon filled with too much air finally popping. “I have always loved you. But I’ve always known I would lose you; from the first day I met you, I knew.”

“You won’t lose me now.” For every bit he’d been loud, she was soft. 

“And it’s terrifying.” He took her face in his hands, as though he was willing her to understand. “You have _everything_ now. You could have anything, anyone you wanted whenever you wanted. Why would you stick with me?”

“Because I love you.”

“I’ve heard that one before plenty. Everyone leaves, Cassandra.”

“Because you hold my hand.” She took a deep breath. “Because you make me tea at three a.m. when I can’t sleep. Because you helped be get dolled up to watch me go kiss someone that wasn’t you. Because you died for me and you still have the scars. Because you’re my partner, Ezekiel. I’m in it for the long run, to love you and help you to heal.”

She wasn’t sure who started it, but suddenly they were kissing, lips smashing desperately and hands grabbing and pulling as close as could be. It was the climax of years’ worth of pining, and Cassandra could not have been more satisfied. 

Well, perhaps she could. They pulled away, panting, and held heavy eye contact while they tried to catch their breath. 

“Is this a yes?” she asked. He nodded and she kissed him again. “Oh thank goodness.” And again. “I was so afraid you'd say no when I confessed.” And again. “And apologized. I only meant to apologize.” Again. 

He pulled back and looked at her seriously. “I'm still not happy about you getting in my head. But it was an accident and you're not going to do it again. So it’s gonna be okay.”

She nodded vigorously. “Absolutely.” The clock on his bedside read 11:00 in blinking red numbers. “So...about staying the night?” 

He grinned at her. “You're more than welcome here.”

**Author's Note:**

> A very happy unbirthday to my dearest Snorkleshit. Thank you for this amazing prompt, with which I had so much fun and went rather overboard.  
> I hope the rest of you enjoy as well, and as always, leave me a comment to let me know what you think!


End file.
